The email I receive most often is one asking me how I run my literacy centers. I read the Daily 5 book during the summer and even though I don't do the Daily 5 exactly the right way in my classroom, I incorporate a lot of what I read into my centers. Click on any of the photos below to enlarge them. Hopefully this post will explain my centers a little better!
 |
| Both of these activities are from my Bear Unit HERE |
 |
| My Word Work cards can be found HERE and Magnetic Letters HERE |
 |
| My Writing Center Activities can be found HERE and my writing folders HERE |
 |
| This is from my Bear Unit HERE |
 |
| Abby's RTI binder can be found HERE |
Even though I don't have it pictured in this post, I also have a pocket chart center where students can complete a lot of sentence scrambles, syllable sorts, rhyming sorts, etc.
I tried to think of everything in this post, but if you have any additional questions please let me know! :)
You can find the center cards seen in this post below.
Great post Caitlin! Your students are doing so many meaningful activities and they look so fun and organized! I use some of the same things like Deedee's Overhead Station (LOVE!) and Abby's RTI binders (AWESOME) Thank you for the great pictures and your blog design is adorable!
ReplyDeleteGreat organization! I really love how you do centers in your room. I wish we had a better guided reading program. I've heard a lot of great things about Treasures.
ReplyDeleteSarah
teachingiscolorful.blogspot.com
Thanks for posting this and sharing your hardwork!!! This is awesome, cannot wait to see your schedule too! Love all you do! Keep it up! Your students and school are so lucky to have you!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great look into your classroom Caitlin. I also read the Daily 5 book along with this great group of K5 bloggers this summer. I am using an assignment system as well, but a few of my students have lost their assignment cards so they are operating on choice! We are only spending 10 minutes in each center. I'd like to do more, but I use a double time frame of 20 minutes for my reading groups. I only have three groups (My top has 8 children) so we don't really have enough time in an hour to go longer. My assistant is available at a center or supervising for 4 of the "center sessions." Then she takes the lowest group back for remedial instruction. We don't do Read to Others. I don't think they can handle it...that's taken care of at our reading table. They all travel to each center every day on the huge master plan that I cooked up with no two children going every place together. My highs and lows are mixed for assistance. I plan one center assignment each day, the others are free choice. But the part that I love the most is our transitions. I set up a visual timer on my interwrite board (also on CD) that has silence for 10 minutes, then a 1.5 minute snippet of a clean-up song. We have 6 intervals of time like this. It signals me and the children to move along to the next activity. My reading groups stay through two intervals (and those songs are a little more mellow so they don't really interrupt us). See, I've always had problems with transitions, getting bogged down in fixing everyone or waiting on the stragglers. No more of that! My next group magically appears to hop into the seats just vacated by my last group! No one aggravating the others while we're waiting to march to the next table. My assistant commented the other day that she is loving this setup the most of any of our years together! The only drawback is that I would like to see them building up stamina at this point and I can't quite see how to transition them to choice.
ReplyDeleteSorry so long, but it's my enthusiasm bubbling over!
Donna W.
darryl40w@att.net
Your writing and word work cards are awesome!!! I've been using them with a kindergarten class and they LOVE them :) I need to get some pictures of them working! I think choice is super important. We have lots of "I CAN" posters in our building at centers, so students know what their options are.
ReplyDeleteBridget
Literacy Without Worksheets
Also - where can we find your center rotation cards?! Love them too!
ReplyDeleteGive me a couple of minutes and I will load them onto here :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for highlighting your Bear unit. I took a look at your product on tpt and am very pleased with the variety of activities that you have incorporated. This will complement so well with my bear unit and more so! An applause for creating a resource which covers all the bases.
Thanks Fawn!!! I am so glad you like it!! I am teaching the Bear Unit for one ore week...my children are really enjoying it!! :)
ReplyDeleteI had the same question about your rotation cards. ;) Thank you for sharing your knowledge! :)
ReplyDeleteAs always... LOVE!
ReplyDeleteMary
Sharing Kindergarten
Love your post! I use some of the same rotations! (And your center cards are adorable!)
ReplyDeleteCheryl
Crayons and Curls
Thanks for this fabulous post. I love to see how teachers organize their morning centers. Also- lucky you- a parent a day!
ReplyDeleteCindy
Granny Goes to School
This is a very complete and wonderful resource! I don't have centers at my school, and have always wondered what they would look like. This is so very helpful!
ReplyDeleteI do have a question -- what would happen if a student was to finish a center early? I know that most of the centers don't have a specific "end" time, but what about something like the craft center, or the poetry center? Do you have unfinished work for them to do if they have finished their work?
Thanks!
Rae
Mindful Rambles
Do you really only have 17 students?? The K teachers at my school have 27! I have 22 right now in first. I'd love to have a volunteer every day. I can't even get one once a week!
ReplyDeletewww.firstgradebrain.com
haha This was actually an in between time...I had just lost 2 students and then I just received 2 new students on Monday of last week. So I am at 19. My numbers are lower than the other kinder teachers at my school because I have the supported class. They try to keep my class numbers lower since I have so many ESE students :)
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteI know this post was from a few years ago and you may do things differently, but I had a question in regards to how to switch groups daily. I understand you switch the green and orange frog Mon and Tues, but how do you switch them Wed-Fri?
Thank you!